


Dying of the Light

by Ladiesofthrones



Series: Dave's Fanfiction - URealms Live [5]
Category: Buffalo Wizards RPF, URealms Live - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:09:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladiesofthrones/pseuds/Ladiesofthrones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, when Gwyneth was a girl, there had been a solar eclipse and the sun had been swallowed by a shadow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dying of the Light

**Author's Note:**

> Not smut for once - kinda just wanted to do a character study. Its based on a piece I pasted on the buffalowizards dreamwidth ages ago. 
> 
> Gwyneth and Ca-Rell can be seen as a a friendship or romantic partnership, whatever floats your boat. 
> 
> I've always headcanoned Gwyneth of having a strong connection to Ouro'ras. I figure she's like his chosen one or something, a champion of the light. By the end of the series, I have the strange feeling that she's going to become a dragon or be made the human embodiment of Ouro'ras or something. Anyway, her connection ti dragons kinda comes through in this fic.
> 
> Enjoy <3

I. 

Most elves would say astronomy lessons were a bore. Theirs was a world full of dragons and magic and spells and wonder. Nobody cared about the stars. They were just stars. 

For Gwyneth, it was different because she knew about the dragons. When she looked up at the sky, at the vast never-ending inky blackness, she was suddenly transported to the birth of magic. Once, there had been two suns in the sky and death had been merely a nightmare. Once, the air was thick with dragon song. When Gwyneth looked at the moon, even as a young girl, a fledgling, still in training, it always felt as if the moon was staring back. 

A month into her training, her class was transported into a clearing near the mountaintop, away from the city. Her breath turned to mist in the cold of the night. She pretended it was dragon smoke.

Her professor, Elvira, suddenly hushed the class and bade them be silent. As she raised her arms to gesture at the sky, Gwyneth's heart nearly stopped. Before her very eyes, the moon was changing. 

The moon is a dragon egg, she thought, and now it is hatching. But that wasn't so. It wasn't that the surface of the moon was splintering, fragmenting into a thousand pieces - it was changing colour. The pearly whiteness was fading, merging into a precious amber. It was as if somebody had taken a brush and had painted the sky. It was breathtakingly beautiful. 

A lunar eclipse, she thought. Perhaps the dragon is hiding. 

II. 

She was older the next time it happened. Wiser. But in many ways, she was still young. There was still an innocence about her, even if her combat skills were quickly becoming fearsome. 

They were on a rooftop. It had been Ca-Rell's idea. Something about wanting to stargaze and trace pictures in the sky. Ca-Rell knew almost every star by name. As she spoke about them, Gwyneth was content to be lulled into tranquillity as she daydreamed about wings and dragon fire. 

This was their season. Later, Ca-Rell's family would be in disgrace and Gwyneth would never speak to her again. Later, there would be indescribable losses and holy glories. Later, they would be strangers. But that was a sad tale that had no place in the serenity of the moonlight and the blissful warmth of summer's embrace. 

The city stretched out below them like a patchwork quilt of marble and quartz. Fountains bubbled with molten gold - liquid stardust. Everywhere there was grandeur and wonder, but Gwyneth couldn't help but be awed by the simpler things. The moon. The stars. The way Ca-Rell smiled she talked about astronomy. 

"I wanted to show you something." Ca-Rell said, gaze cast skywards.  
It did not take long for Gwyneth to figure out what it was. 

High in the heavens, the moon was changing again. It glowed orange like an ember, as if the night was burning. Gwyneth laughed in delight. She couldn't help it. All was beautiful and free and magical. In the back of her mind, deep within her wildest dreams, she could almost hear dragon song. 

"Make a wish" she found herself whispering.  
Ca-Rell shot her a strange look.  
"That's meteors, Gwyneth."  
"Humour me."

They fell into silence as Ca-Rell considered and Gwyneth stared at the moon, transfixed, revelling in its otherness.  
"To freeze time. To live in this moment forever." she said finally. 

Gwyneth closed her eyes. It was a good wish. But autumn came and summer faded and the night never left her quite as wonderstruck again.

III.

Time passed. The wounds inflicted by Rufio's blade cut far deeper than any spell could ever heal. Gwyneth had lost Kallark, lost the baby, lost everything. 

The sky was black. She couldn't see the stars or the moon. She couldn't see anything. All around her, the cold night winds whipped at her hair and bit at her legs. It didn't matter; she couldn't feel it. The only sensation she was conscious of was the ghost of a dagger as it sliced into her. 

Her chest was stained scarlet, a flood of rubies. Afterwards, they told her she had screamed in agony but she could not remember it. There had been a glint in Rufio's eyes, a coldness icier than a snowstorm, as he had stabbed her. He had intended to end her life. He had taken something much worse from her. 

Eventually, she knew, she would have to get over it. It was almost an inevitability. She was a Sunsword, therefore she had a duty, a destiny, an obligation, a responsibility. She owed it to her people to be a leader they could trust to be strong and dauntless. Gwyneth wasn't allowed to be broken. Not even for a second. 

She had already forgiven Rufio, in a sense. But that didn't mean she wasn't bitter. Her entire life she had followed the light, always trying to do what was right and what was just, never allowing herself to accept anything less than perfection. 

And this was her reward. 

Above her, in the sky she wasn't looking at, the moon was the colour of blood. 

IV. 

Once, when Gwyneth was a girl, there had been a solar eclipse and the sun had been swallowed by a shadow. The world became a mosaic of grey and silver, devoid of colour and joy. Vaguely, she recalled feeling distinctly numb and without fear. Her father had smiled at her as his forehead creased.  
"The light will return soon." he had promised her.  
Her eyes reminded her of that day as she stared at her reflection in the twilit pool. They were a sky without light, lost and hopeless, as dark as a starless night. 

She was still shaking and she didn't know if she'd ever stop. Every time she closed her eyes, her world was crumbling again and the earth was pressing down on her. The rumbling was deafening - the screams even more so. Fear consumed her, real, palpable fear, and her muscles howled in protest as she dashed towards the exit. It was so nearly all in vain. How fickle the difference was, that separated life and death. It was nothing more than a toss of a coin, a roll of a dice... Xavius and Elmar had learnt that the hard way. 

She abandoned him. She abandoned them all. 

Elmar had been in her arms for a while, bleeding and almost lifeless. Nothing in the universe had mattered more than saving him. Perhaps she felt that, if she managed to save just one person, the pain would be somehow bearable. Just one person. Please. She had to save just one. But she wasn't strong enough. After all her training, all her battles, she was nothing more than a naive and pathetic child. She saw that now, with heart-wrenching clarity. 

She had always loved dragons. Always. Ever since she was a girl... The thought twisted into her like a dagger into her gut. 

Nothing remained of the fire but dying embers. She was alone in the darkness.  
She had failed. Father forgive her, she had failed.  
Virgo once promised that the light would always return, that night was never eternal. 

For the first time in her life, still quivering from the aftermath of Golestandt blocking out the sun as he ascended to the heavens, Gwyneth realised that her father was a liar.


End file.
